Liberian Urges Citizens to Battle Rebels

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Gen. Samuel K. Doe of Liberia called on the entire population today to take up arms and join the fight against rebels who are trying to overthrow his Government.

In a speech monitored here, General Doe said that all retired officers and enlisted men should rejoin the army, and that students and the elderly should ''get their cutlasses and single-barrel guns and get in the bush'' against the rebels.

''If you are a loyal citizen then go out and defend your country,'' he told a meeting of tribal and political leaders at the executive mansion in Monrovia, the capital of the West African nation.

His plea contrasts with earlier assertions by General Doe dismissing the revolt as a series of remote and minor skirmishes exaggerated by foreign news accounts. The appeal was a response to the series of military successes the rebel group, the National Patriotic Front of Liberia, has scored since the fighting began five months ago.

Since then, the rebels, their numbers increased to at least a thousand, have pushed the army out of virtually all of Nimba County, Liberia's primary agricultural, mining and logging region. They now assert that they have surrounded Buchanan, the port about 45 miles east of Monrovia, the capital.

General Doe also repeated accusations today that the Libyan leader, Muammar el-Qaddafi, had trained and financed the rebels. In recent briefings with reporters, State Department officials have also said there was evidence that Libya had helped finance the rebels.

In an interview at his headquarters in Northern Liberia earlier this week, Charles Taylor, the rebel leader, strenuously denied that he received assistance from Libya or other sympathetic African or Arab nations, saying that if he had done so, ''by now this war would be over.''

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He said his forces were whollly armed with weapons confiscated from Government soldiers who were either killed or dropped them and fled. The rebel soldiers could be seen carrying weapons of Western and Eastern-bloc origin, which by itself proves very little since the Liberian Government had acquired arms from the United States and Romania.

'I Will Make Them Surrender'

Rebel leaders also said they were starting to finance their effort by selling timber and would in the future do so with captured mining operations.

On Thursday, the rebels reportedly launched a new offensive near the town of Gbarnga.the third-largest town in Liberia and the most important Government-held town in the northern part of the country. The atmosphere in Gbarnga was described by a Western diplomat as ''extremely tense.''

Nonetheless, General Doe vowed today that he would soon crush the guerrillas. ''If the rebels will not surrender, I will make them surrender,'' he said.

Earlier this week Mr. Taylor, a former minister dismissed by General Doe, urged civilians in Monrovia, which has a population of about 500,000, to evacuate before the fighting intensifies. He said his forces were in striking distance of the capital.

''If we have to attack the city, Doe is going to try to predict our position and as usual he has always used heavy shells,'' Mr. Taylor said. ''So we have to respond with materials that we have. And we have 106-millimeter howitzers captured from Doe.''

Late last month, the United States suspended the Peace Corps program in Liberia and told American diplomats that they and their families could chose to leave the country. So far, virtually all of the 700 Americans estimated to have once lived in Nimba County have fled, as well as about 500 of the 650 Americans affiliated with the embassy.

A version of this article appears in print on May 19, 1990, on Page 1001006 of the National edition with the headline: Liberian Urges Citizens to Battle Rebels. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe